Stupidity: Noah sends the little punk home with, according to the vice principal, a fractured skull. He's not a minor (the victim may or may not be), and with a savage beating ending up with damage of property and hospitalization of a kid, at school, should have led to something way more severe than 'being expelled' (which seemingly happened because he called her a c*nt, rather than the rest). And hilariously enough, a couple scenes later, the principal reprimands her for giving him, the nearly murderous maniac student, a slight push to keep him at distance (instead of say, checking if she had been assaulted herself).
Sammo
20th Sep 2019
The Boy Next Door (2015)
20th Sep 2019
Alita: Battle Angel (2019)
Stupidity: Cyborgs have amazing jumping capabilities, but the assault on Zalem basically failed because the whole platoon of United Republics of Mars blindly shooted at the defense ring with puny rifles and never trying to avoid it (and they were fully aware of its presence). The novelization at least makes more sense since they have better weapons and it's the tube giving out that wipes them out - here, it happens after it already killed everybody except Michelle Rodriguez.
20th Sep 2019
Alita: Battle Angel (2019)
Stupidity: In the wanted poster for Hugo (he's the only person named "Hugo" in the world, apparently) his bounty for one murder is 30,000 credits, 50% higher than the notorious villain Nyssiana who slayed 7 people (and who knows how many other felonies). Obviously the system is rigged, but one wonders why do they even bother to keep appearances up when murders obviously not committed by a person (Zapan's Damascus Blade is one-of-a-kind, so at most they could have pinned the murder on Alita who shares the tech...but who cares since there's no real law-enforcement or trial?) can just arbitrarily be pinned on others with whatever bounty.
20th Sep 2019
Alita: Battle Angel (2019)
Stupidity: She does not go through with the plan, but the idea that Alita would for no particular reason literally rip her heart out, ask Hugo to sell it, and then think about looking for "a cheap replacement" (when Hugo has almost a million bucks collected anyway) is really getting your priorities wrong, especially considered that in the movie, cyborgs seem to have a circulation not too unlike humans', so without heart she'd not be able to even walk.
19th Sep 2019
Agatha Christie's Poirot (1989)
Stupidity: As far as I can tell this is not a problem introduced by the novelization, but already coming from the original story: without Poirot's involvement, called upon by the murderer, the police would not have suspected murder at all, and still would have a witness with a rock solid alibi to talk about The Dream. If they really wanted another witness, they could and should have summoned a psychiatrist and do to them the same stage act they did with Poirot, they would have been much more qualified witnesses to frame it as suicide. Even to Poirot himself, it's the murderer who suggests the thought there could be foul play involved, at all! The plan makes zero sense because Poirot is not the ideal witness and they want to suggest the victim was mentally ill and suicidal, not that someone wanted to kill him.
19th Sep 2019
Security (2017)
Stupidity: The villain has a couple dozen able men fully equipped with lights (plus vehicles, obviously), but instead of using them to run after the kid who has a minute tops head start on him and is running blindly in soaked mud fields on her little legs, he uses his manpower to clean up the road from blood, spikes and various other traces of the precise location of the shootout. Rather pointless move since the feds are gonna come anyway in the area because of the communication loss with the convoy, with a decent approximation of their position. It appears unbelievable that he would have his priorities so wrong and just leave the girl to run free like that.
19th Sep 2019
A Cure for Wellness (2016)
Stupidity: During the movie, the bad guys keep the main character alive and free to roam the facility at will (even if they made him sign an incriminating form at the very beginning stating he's an inmate) doing absolutely nothing to restrict his freedom till the very end - he even retains personal effects like his broken Rolex and lighter, his wallet full of cash! He breaks into every forbidden area, picks up fights, damages property, escapes multiple times and 'corrupts' the person the whole facility is built for. He is worth absolutely nothing to them and has nobody waiting for him or that will look for him.
19th Sep 2019
Agatha Christie's Poirot (1989)
Stupidity: Hard to swallow that a group of vastly experienced policemen smart enough to figure other tricks out (such as the abnormal position of the gun) would be in any doubt about the victim being left or right handed when she is still wearing their watch on the right wrist - and attention is called by Poirot upon that particular detail right from the start.
18th Sep 2019
Alita: Battle Angel (2019)
Stupidity: In 300 years, in an empoverished world full of people hungry for techs, nobody ever tried to remove the ship from a small pond barely 15 feet deep, and everything inside seems intact. It is mentioned that few tried because the technology is hard to sell being unknown (which is laughable), but surely some would try to strip the ship for alloys, and certainly the lights and monitors wouldn't stay untouched in a world based on scavenging. For 300 years and so close to the city, even.
12th Sep 2019
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (2012)
12th Sep 2019
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (2012)
Stupidity: With all the data gathered on all the girls, and having made a note about the relevance of "Birthday", Jack is completely incapable of establishing any connection between the girls... who all have the exact same birthday. After hours, he needs Miss Fisher to find it out. Who does it by simply reading the word "birthday" that he himself wrote.
12th Sep 2019
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (2012)
Stupidity: The plan of the bad guys to dispose of Miss Fisher, apparently, involved killing her and digging up a grave for her something like 20 yards away from the circus, in plain view and hearing distance from the various trailers. Since not everyone in the circus was a murderous maniac and certainly quite a few were capable to see a good opportunity for blackmail, it seems a bit unlikely it would have been successful.
12th Sep 2019
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (2012)
7th Sep 2019
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (2012)
Stupidity: Miss Fisher is a cunning sleuth and avid reader, and has to search for a hidden message. Yet she does not recognize one of the most common tropes (yes, back in the 20s already, with illustrious writers as Dumas and Poe using it!) in fiction, aka the "invisible ink", even with a gigantic clue about it. She is uncharacteristically dense in this occasion.
2nd Sep 2019
Dark Phoenix (2019)
Stupidity: The X-Men depart for space on a vehicle not designed for space, for an incredibly dangerous mission they know nothing about (and none of them can survive in space at that point), but don't suit up for it in the slightest - and with Nightcrawler and Quicksilver's powers as they are shown later, it'd be easy to do it without wasting time. Not only that, but Xavier communicates with NASA to get the briefing only after the X-Men have already departed.
27th Aug 2019
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (2012)
27th Aug 2019
Wu Assassins (2019)
27th Aug 2019
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (2012)
23rd Aug 2019
Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)
Stupidity: Assuming that Stark had absolute faith in being able to bring Peter back (otherwise, not much point making a dead person his heir), he had an army of killer drones standing by in space, but he made no use of it during the dramatic battle against Thanos, when you'd expect he'd use every resource available.
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: Besides the fact it's a possibility these killer drones (or the satellite) were not yet ready when Thanos attacked, since Tony likes to have his new gadgets be build autonomously, I think it's safe to assume that during the time Thanos' spaceship was in the air the drones had little chance to impact the battlefield as that thing had excellent AA as proven when Captain Marvel came in from orbit. Once the spaceship was destroyed however I'd take it Tony was kinda busy with fighting Thanos and keeping him from the gauntlet to be thinking about any drones or any other protocol he had in space (I doubt he had only 1 satellite with weapons technology on board). Next to that I doubt the drones would have any use keeping Thanos away from the stones anyway, and them fighting the rest of Thanos' army was only second priority (and they were winning).
I actually agree (and upvote) the consideration that there's no hard evidence that the drones were fully operational before the event of Endgame, as I figure that the orbital facility should have some in-built technology to replace any drone lost. He can build new armors in minutes, drones should be assembled quite readily, so the 'big' part would have been designing the 'ship', but I won't get into speculations about the logistics involved, it'd be a wild tangent. I maintain that in this movie we're introduced to quasi-instantaneous anywhere-in-the-world tactical intervention capabilities Stark seemingly had, being presented as his heritage. You postulate that he could have even more space weaponry lurking around, and it wouldn't be out of place since this movie makes the reach of his technology appear truly global in a much different way than it was before, where we saw armors pieces fly from his Malibu garage or something. So, if he was too busy dealing with the messy fight on the ground to be bothered sending an order to the huge swarm of expendable decoys and hunter-seekers he (likely) had at the ready, well, he was surely under-utilizing them (hence the 'stupidity').
Perhaps I was a bit too generous when I said he had plenty of other weapon equipment in orbit. Ever since Iron Man 3 Tony hasn't been building a lot, nothing too elaborate anyway and after infinity war you gotta remember he has been living quietly and peacefully with his family the past 5 years without building anything probably. Even though he was pissed off they didn't build the shield around the earth he was just too tired and depressed to be the guardian, also believing I think that Thanos was right in some way and the dangers for Earth were over, so there was no need for The Avengers. Once he decides to help bring everyone back (and thus Peter) he must have ordered EDITH to build the satellite as a last bit of useful tech to leave his succesor in the case of his death. Last point I want to make which is a bit of a stretch but when Thanos' ship arrives it arrives high in the air and starts and attack on the ground. It's a good possibility the attack was directed at any threats in orbit as well.
Suggested correction: Using hundreds of weaponized drones in that battle would actually be an awful strategy, as the battlefield was so densely packed that almost any member of the Avengers or their sorcerer, Asgardian and Ravager allies could have been accidentally killed by one.
With the huge caveat that this entry is simply "stupidity" and not a legitimate plot hole because it involves a character decision, he could have used them to temporarily distract Thanos during their 3 on 1 battle, attack his ship, provide cover and tactical support during the chase for the gems and whatnot, his software is more than capable of providing valid targets.
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.